


Pluto's Republic

by stephdairy



Category: Solar System (Anthropomorphic)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 15:03:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5460728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephdairy/pseuds/stephdairy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A transcription of some transmissions recorded in the Kuiper Belt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pluto's Republic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Idhren](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idhren/gifts).



It used to be so quiet. Of course, there was the background noise, the hum of the Universe -- I'm used to those -- and maybe the squeaking and chirping of pulsars and quasars, but one filters even those out after a time. I swam through the void, a Wandering Mind. 

Then it started to change. Something, down there, closer to the Star. At first it was just pops and crackles, electrical snaps: nothing one couldn't just dismiss as storms or geology, just One of Those Things. Later, however, these noises started to take form and patterns emerged within them as if there were some controlling mind. Entirely reasonable, you may say; if I am a Mind then why may not others be? There have never been others, though, not down there. As I say, it used to be so quiet. Perhaps I was not alone? 

_Course you weren't. I was here._

I'll come to that. The sounds took on form and when they reached me it became painfully obvious that this was no Wandering Mind like myself but a buzzing morass of tiny minds communicating with themselves and somehow spreading their tiny inconsequential blather across space with no concern for who might hear. And it became worse. Soon they were not only sending messages to each other, they were, what was the term? Broadcasting. The Universe had to know what these tiny little entities were doing down there, and even if their world was no Wandering Mind, it was noisy enough for one. They even gave me a name. 

_Pluto! Pluto! And to think you were sitting there all noble like and they name you after a cartoon dog. How I laughed._

The dog came later. 

_You've had your say. Belt up, Kuiper. It's my turn now._

_Charon 'ere. It used to be boring like old P says as he swam slowly around the Star minding (or Minding?) his own business. Except what he doesn't say is that he never actually minded his own business at all. He's making it up. "Remembering" it. See, I've figured it out, how it all works, and he only started remembering stuff, having Profound Thoughts, in [1930 *]. All that guff about thunderstorms and Marconi and all that? He just thinks it happened, just thinks he remembers it._

[* Trans-Neptunian objects do not use AD dating. I have translated years to assist the reader. --Ed] 

See what I mean? It used to be so quiet around here... 

_But that's the point, innit? When did you first hear me, P? No, don't answer that, this is my bit. I'll tell you: it was in [1978], when I started remembering stuff and making it all noisy. And we're not so different. I remember all that Wandering Mind alone in the Void having Deep Thoughts Very Slowly stuff too. (Well, OK, when I wasn't swirling with galaxies and going with the cosmic flow, you know.)_

_And because I pay attention to the racket from down there, even enjoy it, I can tell you what happened. _They_ discovered me. Catalogued me, called me Charon (Shazza to good mates), and pop, there I am fully formed, remembering all the Old Stuff while trundling round and round constantly looking at an old lump who thinks he's special._

Not so special now. It's getting rather crowded out here. Every little tiny lump of rock has something to say for itself and each and every one of them thinks they discovered the Truth, how it Really Is. Wandering Minds, they all say. I'll allow the Wandering, but the Mind? Hardly. 

_Hardly with you either, eh?_

What? 

_You were going to gloss over it, weren't you? You were going to quietly avoid mentioning your little problem._

I don't think that's entirely appro... 

_See? So this is the thing. P is losing his marbles. All that stuff about remembering things? Now he's forgetting things. That's not supposed to happen. Like I say we're fully formed, memories and all. No sooner they find us down there peering through their telescopes, we remember it all right from the get go. But P, well he's not what he was._

Demoted. Denigrated. Pushed off into a corner of the catalogue. No longer a Wandering Mind, just lump of rock 134340, one among many. Is it any wonder I get a bit confused? A bit... curmudgeonly? One doesn't get treated like this and just shrug it off. It gets to one, has effects. I just can't quite grasp things as I used to. Call it old age. But we don't need to go into that. That's not the story here. 

_Oh, but it is! Because there's something you've forgotten alongside the Grandeur that was Pluto in the Glorious Age of the Solar System. They're sending a Visitor._

I'm not quite that geriatric. We've done that. Came and went. Metal box with antennae. Dead. And in any case it barely came anywhere near us. 

_Not that. See, I told you you'd forgotten. This is a new Visitor._

That'll just pass out beyond like the last one and the one before that, and the one before that back until before they started throwing detritus up here from down there. It probably won't even notice us. 

_Won't notice? We're it. You're it. It's coming to see you._

No, no, no, that can't be right. I've been degraded, demoted, relegated, no longer of importance, not a Wandering Mind, not one of the Greats. I'm not worthy of serious study any more. I'm... I'm sorry, what was I saying? I think I should like to rest now. Perhaps they will miss me. Or rather they won't miss me at all. Ha! 

_Everything dies, P. Everything stops. But this is your time, you old dolt. We all slow down and at some point down there will stop looking up here and we'll be forgotten. But a Visitor? That'll have you up and around grouching properly just like in the old days. You need to be alive and alert to it._

No, it's time to... I can't even remember what it's time to do. Rest. Yes, rest. Quiet. I remember when it was quiet. 

_Listen then, I'll tell you a story._

_Once upon a time there were two small rocks in the outer reaches of the orbit of a Star. No great thoughts, none of that, just floating in the void. They collided and once they'd picked themselves up they found themselves locked together staring at each other._

_And there it would have ended, but for the little buzzing minds down below that were watching, and so you became P, the last Wanderer, completer of the Set. The Good Old Days._

_But once they saw you it was only a matter of time before they saw me and when I started remembering things it was all wrong, all confused. I felt jagged and strange, uncertain, slightly cracked, not fitting my shell. I remembered all the great thoughts, the passage of the stars, but I was forever being remade. New me constantly bubbled up so I wasn't constant at all._

_One thing was. One solid thing outside myself that kept me... stable. You. You drove me crazy but you keep me together._

_So buck up, P. I need you, and we have a Visitor._

**Beep beep. Snappy snappy. Fwirble fwirble. Snappy snappy. Scan scan scan. Beep.**

That's it? That is the sum total of the wisdom of our esteemed Visitor? How is that supposed to help? It's all very well but when it was truly ethereally quiet I could envisage more profound ideas than that. When it was all... 

_See?_

Could it be? It's... It's all back. I remember it all again. 

_Yup_

But I'm not important any more. 

_Important enough for a Visitor. Perhaps not everyone down there lost the faith. You're still a Wandering Mind to them, whatever they might decide officially. And besides, I need you. I'm your moon._


End file.
